The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-02-10
PILLARS OF SMOKE"
REV. DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON AT
THE TABERNACLE.


THE TABERNACLE.
What a True Christian Has to Endure |
in the Service of ions
by the Church's Parasites, both Prot
estant and Catholic.
BROOKLYN, Feb. 6-To-day was moving
day in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, as the annual
pew letting has just occurred and many have
changed places This church combines the
two plans of pew rental and free church. The
rented pews this year yielded an advance on
al previous years, SO that the income win be
about S32, ,000 But about two thousand sit
tilg5 are always kept free, SO that no one may
complain that he cannot worship here for
1ack of means. This morning Professor
Browne rendered organ, first sonata in d
minor by Ritter, and the congregation sang
the hymn:
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come.
Tho subject of the sermon was "Pillars of
Smoke" and the text was taken from Solo
mons Song, iii, 6: "Who is this that coneth
out Of the wilderness like pillars of smoke?"
D.. Talmage said
The architecture of the smoke is wondrous,
whether God with his finger curls it into a
cloud, or rounds it into q dome, or points it
III a spire, or spreads it III wing, or, as in
the text, hoists it III pillar. Watch it wind
ing up from the country farm house in the
early morning, showing that the pastoral in
dustries have begun; or see it ascending, from
the chimneys of the city, telling of the BONES
fed, the factories turning out valuable fabric,
the printing presses preparing book and news
paper, and all the ten thousand wheels in
motion. On a clear day this vapor spoken of
mounts with such buoyancy, and spreads
such delicate veil across the sky, and traces
such graceful lines of circle and semi-circle,
and waves and tosses and sinks and scars and
scatters with such afiluence of shape
and color and suggestiyeness that if you
have never noticed it you like a man
who has all his life lived in Par.s and yet
never seen the Luxembourg and all his life
in Rome and never seen the Vatican, and all
his life at Locl1port and never seen Niagara.
Forty-foar times the Bible speaks of the
smoke, and it is about time that somebody
breaches a sermon recognizing this strange,
weird, beautiful, elastic, charming, terrific
and fascinating vapor. Across the Bible sky
floats the smoke of Sinai, the smoke Of Sodom,
the smoke of Al the smoke of the pit, the
smoke of the volcanic hills when God touches
them, and in my text the glorious church OF
God coming up out of the wilderness like
pillars of smoke.
In the first place, these pillars of smoke in
my text indicate the suffering the church of
God has endured. What do | mean by the
church9 | mean not building, not sect,
but those who in all ages and in all lands, and
of all beliefs, love God and are trying to do
right For many centuries the heavens have
been black with the smoke of martyrdom. If
set side by side you could girdle the earth
with the fires ofpersecution. Rowland Taylor
burned at Hadleigh; Latimer burned at
Oxford; John Rogers burned at Smithfield;
John Hooper burned at Gloucester; John
Euss burned ut Constance; Lawrence Saun-
Gers burned at Coventry; Joan of Arc burned
at Rouen. Protestants have sometimes pointed
to the Catholics as prosecutors, but both
Protestant and Catholic have practiced in
famous cruelties The Catholics, during
the reign of Hunneric, were by Protestants
put to the worst tortures stripped of their
clothing, hoisted in the air by pulleys with
weights suspended from their feet, then let
down, and ears and eyes, nose and tongue were
anputated and red hot plates of iron were put
a.ainst the tenderest part Of their bodies.
George Bancroft, the historian, says Of tho
state of Maryland: "In the land which
Catholics had opened to Protestants mass
might not be said publicly; no Catholic
priest or bishop might utter his faith in a
voice of persuasion; no Catholic might teach
the Young II q wayward child of n Papist
would but become an apostate the law wrest-
ed for him from his parents a share of their
property. Such were the methods adopted
to prevent the growth of popery." Speaking
OF Ireland, Bancroft, tho historian, says
tod tn
Ireland were required to be registered, and
were kept like prisoners at large within pre-
seribed limits. All Papists exercising eccle-
:siastical jurisdiction, all monks, friars and
regular priests, and all priests not then ac-
Hualy in parishes and to be registered, were
banished from Ireland under pain of trans
Tortation, and, on return, of being hanged,
drawn and quartered."
Catholicism as well as Professionalism has
had it's martyrs. 1t does seem as if when any
ono sect got complete dominancy in any land
tho devil of persecution and cruelty took
possession of that sect Then see the Catho-
lies after the Huguenots. See the Gentiles
aftei the Jews in Touraine, where a great pit
was dug and fire lighted at the bottom of the
nit, and 100 Jewish victims were consumed
Sec the Presbyterian parliament of England,
moro tyrannical in their treatment of oppo-
nents than had been the criminal courts
Persecution against tho Bapoists by Pedo-
Baptists Persecution of the Established
church against the Methodist church Per-
secution against tho Quakers. Persecution
against the Presbyterians. Under Emperor
Diocletian la, 900 Christians were mae5acred,
and ZOO, 900 more of them died from banish-
1ncnt and exposure. Witness the sufferinga
of tho Waldenses, of the Albigenses, of the
HISTORIANS. Witness St. Bartholemew's mas
eacre. Witness tho Duke of Alva driving out
o. life 1s, 900 Christians. Witness Herod, and
Nero, and Decius, and Hildebrand, and Tor
ouemada and Earl Of Montfort, and Lord
Claverhouse who, when told that he must
give account for his cruelties said: 81 have
no need to account TO man, and as for God, |
will take Him in my own hands" A red line
runs through the church history of nineteen
hundred years-a line of blood. Not by the
hundreds of thousands but by the millions
must we count those slain for Christ's sake
No wonder John Milton put the groans of the
martyrs to an immortal tune, writing:
Avenge, o Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whost
bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold.
The smoke of martyrs homes and martyrs
bodies if rolling up all at once would have
-eclipsed tho monday sun and turned the
brightest day the world ever saw INTO MID
night "Who is she that cometh up out oi
the wilderness like pillars Of smoker
Has persecution eeaseda Ask that young
man, who is trying to be Christian, in &
store or factory, where from morning to nigh
ho is the butt of all the mean witticislns O.
unbeleving employees Ask that wife, who's
husband makes her fondness for the house o
God and even her kneeling prayer by the bed
side derision, and Is no moro fit for her holy
companionship than q filthy crow would b
fit companion for a robin or g golden orioie
Compromise with the world ana surrender t
its conventionalities and it may let you alone
but all who will live godiy in Christ Jesu
must suffer persecution. Be theatre going
card playing, wine drinking, round dancing
Christian, and you may escape criticism anC